Oleg Orlov (biologist)

Oleg Petrovich Orlov (Олег Петрович Орлов; born April 4, 1953) is a Russian human rights activist who has participated in post-Soviet Union human rights movements.

He serves as the chairman of the Board of Human Rights Center “Memorial,” and is an executive board member of the Center's International, Historic-Educational Society.

Oleg Orlov was born on April 4, 1953, to the Orlov family.

His father, Pyotr Mikhailovich, was a graduate of MEPHI (Moscow Engineer Physical Institute) and an engineer; his mother, Svetlana Nikolaevna, was a graduate of MGU (Moscow State University) philological faculty and a school teacher.

The 20th convention of the Communist Party Congress, which in 1956 condemned a cult of Stalin worshipers and revealed information on the crimes of Stalin's regime, had a strong impact on Oleg's father.

From that time on, according to Oleg Orlov, his father became a determined opponent of communism.

In the kitchen of their Moscow apartment many people would often gather to hold political conversations, argue, and listen to songs of bards.

Having not succeeded in getting into Moscow State University on his first try, Oleg Orlov became a student of the agricultural Timiryazevsky Academy.

After successfully completing three courses in the academy he transferred to the biology faculty at MGU.

Upon finishing his studies he worked for the Institute of Plant Physiology at the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

During the course of his work at the institute—after the start of the war in Afghanistan in 1979—Orlov made himself a primitive copy machine (hectograph), and for two years posted political leaflets dedicated to the war, the situation in Poland, and the activity of the “Solidarity” movement.

In 1988 Orlov became a member of the initiative group “Memorial”: A group dedicated to supporting the rehabilitation of victims of political repression in the USSR, publicizing the facts of mass human rights infringements in the USSR, establishing monuments to the victims of political repression, creating a museum and library devoted to the theme of political repression, and freeing of political prisoners.

Subsequently, the All-Union, voluntary, historic-educational society “Memorial” was formed on the basis of the original initiative group.

Orlov became the coordinator of the elective committee for “Memorial”.

From 1988–1989 he actively participated in the preparatory and founding congresses of “Memorial”.

In 1990 Orlov participated in the electoral block “Elections-90” [Vybory-90], was the authorized representative of human rights defender Sergey Kovalev on elections in the Supreme Council of RSFSR, and after his election worked in the administration of the Supreme Council where he held the position of key specialist on a committee for human rights.

Orlov worked on laws dealing with the humanization of the penitentiary system in Russia and the rehabilitation of victims of political repression.

While occupying this position, Orlov simultaneously became chairman of the Board for the Human Rights Center “Memorial.”

The movement was registered in 1991 and later was renamed to the International Historic-Educational Human Rights and Charity Organization “Memorial”.

Orlov became one of the trustees of the organization.

During the coup in Moscow in 1991 Orlov was a defender of “the Russian White House.”

From 1991 to 1994 he was an observer of conflict zones in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Moldova, and the Ingushetia-Ossetia conflict in the Northern Caucasus.

He also co-authored many reports for “Memorial.”

Beginning in 1994 Orlov, together with Sergei Kovalev, the chair of the Committee of Human Rights under the President of Russia, worked in the military conflict zone of the Chechen Republic.

He personally met Chechen leaders Dzhokhar Dudaev and Aslan Maskhadov, participated in negotiations to exchange prisoners, and inspected hospitals and camps for prisoners of war.

In June 1995 Oleg Orlov, as part of a group headed by Kovalev, participated in negotiations with terrorists, who under the direction of Shamil Basaev captured hostages in the city of Budyonovsk.

After successful negotiations, members of Kovalev's group (including Orlov) became voluntary hostages in order to guarantee the agreed-upon exchange of the majority of hostages.

Subsequently, Orlov and Human Rights Center “Memorial” gave much attention to the problem of kidnapping in the Caucasus and victims living among the peaceful populations of the Chechen Republic, Ingushetia and Dagestan.

Orlov also refused an offer from Kovalev to work in the presidential human rights structure.

Since the beginning of the second Chechen war in October 1999 Orlov has headed the work of “Memorial” in the Northern Caucasus, where representatives of “Memorial” work in Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, Northern Ossetia, Kabardino-Balkariya, and Stavropol territory.

From 2004 until 2006, Orlov was in the Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights of the Russian Federation.

In 2004 Orlov became a member of the President of the Russian Federation's council for the development of civil society and human rights institutions under the leadership of Ella Pamifilova.

Since April 2004 Orlov has also been a member of the Advisory Council under the Human Rights Commissioner in the Russian Federation.

In 2006 he left the council as a sign of protest against a comment made by Russian president Vladimir Putin concerning the murder of journalist Anna Politkovska, in which he announced that the murder brought Russia a bigger loss than her publications.

On the night of November 24, 2007, the day before a protest in Nazran, the capital of Ingushetia, Oleg Orlov and a group of TV reporters from REN TV were taken hostage in a Nazran hotel by an armed group of people in masks.

While threatening the hostages with their weapons, the kidnappers forced them to wear black bags and drove the hostages outside the city to a field, where they dragged them from the car and began beating them.

One of the journalists who suffered through the ordeal later told:

“They beat us silently.

Through his work with Memorial, Orlov was a laureate of the 2009 Sakharov Prize in recognition of his human rights work.

He is a member of the federal political council movement Solidarnost.